Chrome Web Store has 188k extensions with at least 1.2 billion installs

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 4, 2019
Google Chrome
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The Chrome Web Store for Chrome extensions hosts more than 188k extensions that have a total installation count of at least 1.23 billion; a scan by Extension Monitor brought additional details to light.

Only 13 Chrome extensions have more than 10 million users, the largest user count group that the Store uses. These 13 extensions have more than 10 million users but the exact number is not revealed.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are more than 19k extensions with 0 installs, and 50% that have fewer than 16 installs.

Extensions with fewer than 1000 installations make up about 87% of all Chrome extension installations.

Tip: check out our list of the top Chrome extensions and top Firefox add-ons.

chrome extensions user count

As far as top extensions with more than 10 million installations is concerned, it can be divided into two groups: extensions that get installed by a service or software installation, and extensions that get installed manually by users.

The following extensions are on the list at the time of writing:

  1. Adblock
  2. Adblock Plus
  3. Adobe Acrobat
  4. Avast Online Security
  5. Avast SafePrice
  6. Cisco Webex Extension
  7. Google Translate
  8. Grammarly for Chrome
  9. Honey
  10. Pinterest Save Button
  11. Skype
  12. Tampermonkey
  13. uBlock Origin

Three of the top 13 extensions are content blockers, two price comparison extensions, and five can be linked to popular programs or services.

The next tier, extensions with less than 10 million installs consists of ten additional extensions, all with an installation count of more than 6.8 million.

These are:

  1. Amazon Assistant for Chrome
  2. Avira Browser Safety
  3. AVG SafePrice
  4. Google Hangouts
  5. Google Photos
  6. Hola Free VPN Proxy Unblocker
  7. LastPass: Free Password Manager
  8. Rung Rinh
  9. Text
  10. Video Downloader for Chrome

Two official Google extensions, two extensions by security companies, the first video downloader, and others make up this group.

One surprising takeaway from the data that Extension Monitor published is that 8.9% of extensions fall into the paid category. Paid extensions are further divided into those that require payment upfront and those that use in-extension purchases.

While paid extensions make up 8.9% of all extensions in the Chrome Web Store, they make up less than 2.6% of all installs. The distribution is similar to that of free extensions. The top five paid extensions make up 48.5% of all paid installs. The dominant paid extension is IE Tab with 4.1 million installs (31.5%):

  1. anonymoX
  2. Gantter Project Management
  3. IE Tab
  4. Lucidchart Diagrams
  5. Polarr Photo Editor

Comparison to Firefox extensions

Mozilla lists installs for all Firefox add-ons on the official Mozilla AMO website. Ten Firefox extensions with more than 1 million installs are listed on AMO currently. The top extension, Adblock Plus, has roughly 9 million installs.

Adblockers make up the bulk of top Firefox extensions and you find several that made up the Chrome top list as well.

Firefox users have an advantage when it comes to video downloaders as Chrome extensions face limitations imposed by Google (no YouTube dowloads).

Closing Words

Is the number of installations an important metric? It is an indicator and it is certainly the case that extensions with lots of installs are pushed more than extensions with fewer installs.

Now You: Do you take installs into account when installing browser extensions?

Summary
Chrome Web Store has 188k extensions with at least 1.2 billion installs
Article Name
Chrome Web Store has 188k extensions with at least 1.2 billion installs
Description
The Chrome Web Store for Chrome extensions hosts more than 188k extensions that have a total installation count of at least 1.23 billion.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. JohnIL said on August 4, 2019 at 2:10 pm
    Reply

    Another article stated some extensions had fewer then 16 installs. I just wonder how many are fake or orphaned and are not even properly supported anymore? My take was the shear number of extensions doesn’t matter because only a small percent are even used in large numbers.

  2. Klaas Vaak said on August 4, 2019 at 11:57 am
    Reply

    Are these 1.2 billion installations a gross figure (i.e. downloaded/installed) or a net figure (i.e. downloaded/installed – uninstalled)? My guess is that it’s the former.

  3. ilev said on August 4, 2019 at 10:55 am
    Reply

    How many of the 188k extensions are fake, malware, duplicate (with new names…) ?

  4. Yuliya said on August 4, 2019 at 10:46 am
    Reply

    >9. Honey
    🤦🏼‍♀️

    1. Hun said on August 5, 2019 at 1:43 pm
      Reply

      That shit is totally syphoning data innit? Never used myself but I see it pushed constantly in ads and podcast reads.

      1. Yuliya said on August 5, 2019 at 1:54 pm
        Reply

        Yeah, it’s being shilled all over youtube. Absolute spyware. I am amazed at the number of people still falling for this kind of garbage.

    2. ShintoPlasm said on August 4, 2019 at 2:55 pm
      Reply

      lol

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